


What If—The Down Off the Mountain Job

by crayonbreakygal



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 09:00:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7095370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayonbreakygal/pseuds/crayonbreakygal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The two of us, we do things they can't. Won't.--Eliot.  Parker contemplates what Eliot has said after they get down off that mountain.  Takes place after The Long Way Down Job, season four.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What If—The Down Off the Mountain Job

**Author's Note:**

> Writing Parker and writing Parker/Eliot is hard. I have trouble deviating from canon on these two. Here it goes though. Enjoy!

What If—The Down Off the Mountain Job

 

Takes place right after The Long Way Down Job, season four

Eliot: Hey. It's a good thing it was us.

Parker: Because we'd leave him.

Eliot: Because they would've kept trying and they would've froze to death right next to him, especially Hardison. So it was a good thing it was us. The two of us, we do things they can't. Won't.

Parker: Does that make us bad?

Eliot: It makes us... us. Now, you can take that as a gift, or you can take it as a curse. And that's up to you.

\--From whendarknessfalls.net where the Leverage transcripts live!

 

Parker couldn’t get their conversation out of her mind.  She and Eliot were so similar in mindset.  She and Hardison weren’t so much, but that’s why she liked Alec so much.  He wasn’t anything like her.  And that was good.

What worried her was when Hardison found out what she was really like?  Would he worry or would he reject her?  Eliot would never reject her.  He understood too much, too well.

It was early morning, a few days after they had gotten back from the mountain.  Nate was surely asleep because he probably had altitude sickness up there.  Plus the fact that she was certain he and Sophie were sleeping with each other.  She knew things.  Many things.  Probably not as much as Nate knew, but so what.

Pulling a bowl down from the cupboard, she found her favorite cereal and proceeded to munch.  Eliot always kept her well stocked just in case.  Nate had no mind to go out and buy food.  He’d starve or spend a fortune in take-out.  He was lucky to have Eliot around to feed him, all of them. 

“Do you have to crunch so loud?” she heard a voice say off in the distance.

She hadn’t seen Eliot anywhere when she’d entered.  There he was though, sitting at Nate’s desk, laptop open and working.

“Hungry.  I didn’t see you there.”

“Thought I’d get caught up on some things.”

“Me too.”

Parker looked everywhere but at Eliot.  She didn’t know what to do about him.  The way his hair fell around his face, like he was attempting to hide himself away; his hands twisted together, never still.  The rest of him could sit still for hours on end.  His hands though, they often twisted, like he was reliving all the fights he had gotten into, or all the lives he possibly had taken.  That was one thing he would never answer.  She was kind of glad he didn’t. 

Parker was thankful that this last con didn’t involve too many fights.  Sometimes Eliot would walk into Nate’s place almost unable to move.  She’d seen too much blood on him to last a lifetime.  His bruises were often more colors than she’d ever seen on a body.  That worried her.  He kept putting himself in the line of fire.  If she could take just a bit of that away from him, she would. 

“Doing a threat assessment.”

Parker pulled a chair over from the dining table and sat down, facing him. 

“Anybody we need to worry about?”

“Everybody.  Shit, we’ve made so many enemies, I don’t know where to start.”

“Most of them went to jail.”

“Doesn’t matter.  They could order a hit from jail just as easily as out of it.  Makes you wonder why we tend to gloat once a mark is taken down.”

“Yeah, Nate does love the gloat.  And telling the mark who he is.”

Parker smiled his way, like she was telling a joke in her head.

“Wanna tell me the punchline?”

As he placed his hands on the desk, she looked down at them, not wanting to look him straight in the eyes when she had to say what she had to say.

“Thanks.  Up on that mountain.  You were right.”

“Right? About what?  We gave it our best shot.”

“It wasn’t about the body.  It was about the man.”

“Nice move there with the phone.”

Parker huffed a big breath.  “She’ll have that video forever.”

Both looked away from the expressions, not wanting to know what each was feeling.

“So, uh, what are we gonna do?”

Eliot looked at her strangely, like he didn’t understand the question.  “About?”

“Oh, uh, the bug.  You know.”

That wasn’t what she wanted to ask, but realized at that moment she didn’t want the answer to her other question. 

“I don’t know.”

He didn’t know?  Great.  Now she would never ask him about the other things she wanted to know.

“Parker, that’s not why you’re here, is it?”

He knew her so well.  Kinda scary.  No one knew her that well, even Hardison.

“Nope.  Cereal?”

Eliot laughed a little, then got up from Nate’s chair to lead her over to the kitchen.

“Let me make you something a little better than that sugary cereal.”

She leaned against the counter, watching him pull pans out to set on the stove.

“Pancakes,” she cheered.

“Pancakes it is.  Your question?”

Parker sighed in frustration.  She thought if she distracted him, he’d forget to ask her what was up.

“You said that we were alike?”

“No, I said we do the things they can’t, won’t.  Kind of like Nate sacrificing himself for the rest of us.  I guess in some ways he does get it.  Although since he put himself in that position in the first place.”

“I don’t get caught.”

Eliot stopped what he was doing and looked up at her.

“You will get caught.  Don’t count on never getting caught, Parker.”

“But I have you to rescue me.”

“I want, I really want to be there to rescue you.  Know that.  But it doesn’t always come down to me being there.  Plan better, smarter, faster.  Then I don’t have to be there.”

“That means don’t get involved?  I think the one thing that Nate has taught me is the emotions do matter.  It’s what you do with them…”

Eliot took her hands in his.  She didn’t want to cry in front of him.  She’d rarely shown any kind of emotion, unless it wasn’t the correct one.  Sophie had worked on that with her.  She wondered when it was she could actually graduate and be off on her own.

“Just don’t fall in love with one of your teammates and then act like an ass the whole time about it and make them leave and then…”

Before Eliot could finish his ranting, Parker yanked him to her, pushing her lips into his.  To say he was stunned was an understatement.  It was when she moved against him that he returned it.

Both pulled away at the same time, Parker looking down, Eliot looking away.

“That’s just not a good idea,” Eliot croaked out, voice rough.

“I’m not going to fall for you, Eliot.  I’m not. Don’t make me,” Parker managed to get out before she had to bolt.

She hoped that he understood, that she was in too deep with Hardison, that Hardison needed her.  It wasn’t about her needs.  Sure, he was nice and thoughtful and gentle where she wasn’t any of those things.

Slamming the door behind her, she made it to the elevator before breaking down.  Now what?  Why’d she go and ruin the dynamics of the team? Why’d she go and ruin her friendship with Eliot and possibly with Hardison?

Dammit, Parker. Focus. What could she do to fix this?

 

“You what?”

“I, I, didn’t mean to do it.  It just happened.  What do I do?”

Sophie could help her fix this.  She was good at this.

“Um, sweetheart, do you know why you did it?”

“Why?  Why does it matter?”

“It matters quite a bit.”

They sat on Sophie’s couch, her cuddled up with a pillow in her lap, Sophie with her favorite tea brewing.  Taking a sip, Sophie gently sat the fragile cup down and placed her hands on Parker’s.  Sophie usually didn’t touch her.  What’s up with that?

“Huh?  I just, I don’t know.”

“Listen, you have feelings for Hardison, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“You seem to have feelings for Eliot, correct?”

“Um, yeah, probably.”

Sophie sighed at her.  Had she screwed this up beyond fixing?  It was a mistake.  It must have been a mistake.  She’d apologize to Eliot and that would be the end of it.

“I’m not saying you have to choose, but you can’t just string one along.  That would be wrong.”

Parker looked at her warily.  That’s kind of what Sophie did for them:  she’d string a mark along until it was time to take him or her down.  She guessed Sophie would know a lot about stringing people along.

“How’d you know you were in love with Nate?”

Parker had picked the worst time to ask her friend that.  Sophie had picked up her tea and had taken a drink.  It obviously went down the wrong way, choking the grifter a bit.

“What?”

“You love him.  It’s pretty obvious.”

“It’s complicated, Parker.”

“Not as complicated as this is.”

Sophie turned her head like she was contemplating what Parker had just said.

“Really?  It’s just he’s such a difficult man to deal with.”

“So it’s true?”

“Well, maybe.  Possibly.  Yes, dammit.  Nate.  Don’t you dare say anything to him.  He still hasn’t come to terms with San Lorenzo.”

“San Lorenzo?”

“We seemed to have celebrated a bit too much.”

Parker smiled at that.  She and Hardison just had dinner together.  Eliot had disappeared right before, not to appear until he was yelling about Nate not being ready to go, but with just a bit of a smile on his face.

“Oh, I think Eliot knows too.”

Sophie’s eyes widened in surprise.  “How on earth?  Oh.  And here I thought I’d been discreet.”

“He tends to notice things. It’s his job.”

Sophie laughed when Parker said that.  “Now back to you.  My whatever it is with Nate can wait.  It has for over a dozen years. Not like we can solve that in one sitting.”

“It’s OK.  I think I’ve figured out what to do.  Eliot takes the hits. That’s what he does.”

“Oh, Parker.  That’s not what I meant.  Just go with your heart.”

“If I do, then it will all fall apart.”

 

The next day, Parker made it in early, hoping to catch Eliot alone and ready to talk.  Only she didn’t catch him alone.  Hardison was already up and doing research.  Nate was leaning against the dining room table, coffee cup almost empty, reading page after page of information.  Eliot was nowhere to be found.

“Hey, whoa.  Why are you two up so early?”

“Up early?  Mamma, we never went to bed.”

Even before Nate asked for more coffee, Parker had found the pot and poured it for him. 

“You two should probably get some rest.”

“Soon.”

“Anything I can do?”

Nate shoved some papers her way as she sat down.  They sat that way for hours.  Parker would occasionally fill up Nate’s cup while Hardison kept typing on his keyboard.  Eventually Nate’s head came down on the table, eyes closed.  Hardison pulled his jacket from behind a chair and proceeded to leave.

“Food run.  Be back,” he said quietly, not willing to wake the mastermind from his slumber.

The door closing had Nate sitting back up again, eye blurry from his very short nap.

“Hardison leave?”

“Food run.”

“Oh.  Where’s Eliot?”

Yeah, that’s what she was wondering.  Where did their hitter disappear to?

“I haven’t seen him.”

“Strange. You OK, Parker?”

“Yeah.  You?  No aftereffects of that mountain?”

“Still tired.  I slept almost all day yesterday.  Playing havoc with my sleep schedule.”

That explained why he was up so early planning.

“Why don’t you go take a nap or something?”

“Oh, I’m fine.”

Parker tapped her pencil a few times, turned a page over, but really didn’t see what was on it.

“I, We, something happened.  I’m confused.”

Nate stopped what he was doing again, reaching for his cup, which was now empty.

“Confused?” he frowned into his cup.

“Yeah.  We just left him.  I wanted to bring him down. Then the line broke and we didn’t have enough rope.”

“Parker, you did the best you could.”

“We didn’t bring him back.”

“But you did.  It wasn’t about his body, it was about his soul.”

Parker’s intake of breath almost made her dizzy. 

“What if I did something wrong? What if I, dammit Nate.  Just tell her you love her.  Quit being so stupid.”

Nate’s eyes narrowed at the last statement.

“Listen, being on that mountain has made me realize that it could happen in the blink of an eye. Just quit waiting.  I have to go.”

Parker scrambled up, papers now flying everywhere at once.

“Parker, wait.  Just…”

 

Knocking instead of just breaking in, she heard movement.  Footsteps, shuffling, probably a bit of growling.  He was in there.

“What?” he got out as he wrenched the door open.  “Is someone hurt?”

“No.  Well, yes.  Just let me in.”

“Parker, I’m busy.  If it’s not an emergency.”

“It is.”

She slammed the door behind her, pointing to Eliot’s sofa.

“Sit.”

That single command had him obeying.

“We need to talk.  See…,” Parker started.

“Hardison came by.  Was worried.  We talked, about you.  He is so head over heels, it’s not even funny.”

That settled it for Parker.  She was coming over to tell Eliot that she had feelings for him.  Now, things changed in an instant. 

“I just wanted to apologize. Just not me.  Sorry if I messed with you.  Friends?”

“Yeah, friends.”

They bantered on for a few minutes until Parker stood up abruptly. 

“Time to go.  I gotta help Sophie out.  You know, her love life?  Eeek.”

“I know, Parker.  It was kind of obvious.”

“Hardison is the only one who doesn’t know.”

“Yeah.”

Eliot leaned back against the back of his sofa like he didn’t have a care in the world.

Parker made a few more gestures and made her way out.

“See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.  Gotta go see Hardison now.”

Parker shut the door and leaned her head against the door, knowing that conversation went really poorly.  Awkward wasn’t even close to what that was.

 

It took a few weeks, but things seemed to go back to normal for Eliot and Parker.  Nate and Sophie though, particularly after that potato job, were hanging on each other’s words and actions like no other.  Hardison was attentive and even sweet, attempting to engage her in conversation.  It was starting to make her feel warm and cuddly.  Eliot smiled her way occasionally, but she knew he was off.

After the grave incident, nothing more was said.  Hardison and Parker spent more and more time together.  It was the right thing to do.  She almost lost him.  Hardison couldn’t take care of himself.  Parker wanted to be around to do that.  Eliot could take care of himself.  He’d be OK. He had to be OK.

“You OK?” she asked late one night as they planned another con.

“Sure,” he said lightly.

“Would you tell me if you weren’t?”

Eliot just looked at her and grinned. 

“Definitely.”

Whether that was a lie or not, Parker couldn’t figure out.  In another time, place, whenever, she could have fallen for him.  The timing was just not right.  Sometimes though, when she looked at him, when he wasn’t paying attention, she played the what if game. 


End file.
